The Dillard University Biomedical Research Program is designed to increase the research training capability and experimental productivity of the Natural Sciences Division. Six individual research problems involving six faculty members and 12 students will be studied as follows: (1) Water Balance in the American Cockroach - a project designed to determine how the frontal ganglion keeps the body fluids of the cockroach in a homeostatic state; (2) Skin Testing Program - to develop an antigen useful in skin testing to study the epidemiology of Sporothrix schenkii, and to isolate spores from soil to study the ecology of the fungus; (3) Plasma Proteins and Variant Hemoglobins -involving sickle cell screening and electrophoretic and immunoelectrophoretic analysis of plasma proteins of persons with variant hemoglobin combinations AC, AS, SS, and SC,: (4) Transition Metal Complexes with Macromolecules - to determine how metals complex with physiologically important macromolecules and to determine what physical and chemical properties are changed when such complexes are formed; (5) Characterization of Corneal Mucoproteins - to extract and fractionate corneal acidic polysaccharides, chondroitin - 4 - sulfate and keratan sulfate and ascertain the hydration of each fraction. (6) Enzymes, Phospholipids and Metals in Sickle Cell Crises - to develop techniques which might be useful as diagnostic tools in detecting certain metabolites in the blood of persons undergoing or about to undergo a sickle cell crisis.